U.S. UNIVERSITIES are reeling from the looming $7 billion
cost of providing federal law enforcement with instant
investigative access to the computer networks honeycombing every up-to-date
campus.

Institutions of higher education and other providers
of Internet connections, such as libraries and airports, are under orders
to upgrade their systems by the spring of 2007 -- so that federal cops can
more readily tap e-mail and other online communication at the flick of a
switch, from remote locations.

The Federal Communications Commission has ordered this
costly revamping of campus computer facilities as a technological updating
of a 1994 wiretap law (the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement
Act). The freshly updated rule, however, is a spectacular example of the
"unfunded mandate" -- a government requirement for which the government
does not pay.

The affected institutions are expected to bear the
huge cost -- many millions of dollars in some cases. They must buy expensive
new switches and routers, have them installed to exacting standards and,
if necessary, redesign their computer networks linking dozens of buildings
-- all to enable the feds to intercept incriminating communications without
leaving their desks.

One estimate of the bill for the computer work translates
into a $450 tuition increase for students whose tight budgets cannot afford
this generosity to a well-funded FBI.

Unsurprisingly, the universities acting through the
American Council on Education have filed a legal challenge to the FCC order.
They hope to convince Washington that less expensive alternative approaches
can satisfy the law-enforcement (and war-on-terrorism) need to catch up
with the technological revolution in communications, including the explosive
growth of e-mail and Internet-based telephone service.

The universities, accustomed to complying quietly with
court orders in helping authorities carry out surveillance of particular
on-campus targets, are not at this point fighting the new order on civil-rights
or privacy grounds. But the increasing sophistication of Internet surveillance
should be an international concern among those wary of potential abuses,
both here and in less democratic parts of the world.

Beijing is one of the hotbeds of official activity
to crack down on forbidden communications, by means of Internet surveillance
and more recent scrutiny of mobile-phone messaging. Targets are believed
to include "sensitive" political topics as well as pornography.

The international media watchdog Reporters Without
Borders denounced a Vietnamese directive for online surveillance, aimed
at what Hanoi calls "reactionary and hostile forces."

So the FCC plan for easy access by federal enforcement
agencies to the flow of online chatter through campus networks will be greeted
with understandable suspicion by both students and faculty. There could
be a wave of protests against Big Brother, especially if the enormous cost
of upgrading necessitates higher tuition.

The government should back off from this unreasonable,
unfunded mandate.

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